Including and Exceeding ‘Women’: Studying Femininities in LGBTQIA+ Sydney
Abstract
It is important to include and exceed the category ‘woman’ in femininities research if we are to capture the multiplicity of gendered expressions and experiences that can be understood as feminine. In this paper I draw on 12 months of ethnographic research with LGBTQIA+ Sydney residents who self-identify as any gender other than ‘male’ and who enact forms of femininities. I consider the possibilities and limitations of the category ‘woman’ for empirical research into articulations and enactments of femininity and suggest that ethnography can be a queer methodology that is useful for taking up the task of studying femininities beyond, but not without, ‘women’.
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